Schools Learning Programme

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We have a menu of experiential, multi-sensory and interactive curriculum-based workshops to choose from, or we can work with you to create a tailored package for the specific needs of your students. These have been developed through extensive teacher consultation and meet National Curriculum and Exam Board Specifications. Work in our creative spaces, be safe with our downloadable health and safety guidance, embed the visit with objects from Artemis (school object loans service) and have any of the Discovery Centre workshops as outreach in your setting.

How much will it cost? All our sites have free entry to Leeds LEA and SEN schools. We charge a £1 per pupil entrance charge for non-Leeds LEA schools (including Academies) at Abbey House, Armley Mills, Thwaite Mills, Temple Newsam House and Lotherton Hall (includes Bird Garden). We believe every child should be able to access cultural education and cost should not be a barrier. As such, we have held our workshop prices since September 2012. Our workshop charges, for one class (either on site or as outreach), are: £55 for a two-hour workshop and £110 for a four-hour workshop.

Search our workshops and self-led resources below and be inspired!​

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Leonora Cohen, the Leeds Suffragette

Site: City Museum

Key stages:KS3, KS4

Subject areas:History, Citizenship, Literacy, English

This workshop is led by museums staff.

What's involved?

Meet Leonora Cohen, evaluate original archive sources and use enquiry based learning (Was this iron bar used to smash the Tower of London case?) to delve into life as a suffragette. Consider Leonora’s court case… guilty or innocent? You decide!

The Victorian Schoolroom

Amazing Animals

The Discovery Centre is a one-stop shop for getting up close to animal specimens that you can’t find at school, from 4 billion year old fossils to gorilla skulls. This workshop can be focussed in different ways depending on your topic, and differentiated for different year groups

Abbey House Murder Mystery

Chronology: Become a Human Timeline!

Develop chronological understanding with a difference! Pupils become the heads of a giant timeline, from Stone Age to modern day. Solve a treasure hunt for objects in our Leeds Story gallery then finish in style with creative group presentations.

A House Fit for a King

Revival: a textile project opportunity

Got the next Vivienne Westwood or Wayne Hemmingway in the class? Want to set them a real-life challenge to solve? Your school could participate in this annual competition where the winning student's design is displayed for the year at Lotherton Hall.

What have the Romans ever done for us?

Did you know we have our very own West Yorkshire Roman villa? Pupils will explore how the Romans lived and farmed in Britain by handling artefacts from Dalton Parlours, a Roman villa near Wetherby, and investigate the legacy they left behind.

Topics Through Time: Toys Through Time

Marvellous Myths and Lively Legends

Is a unicorn real? What has an eleplant skull got to do with anything? Get hands on with real museum artefacts from around the world to discover some less-well known myths, legends and fables from around the world.

Maths at the Mill

Introducing Florence Nightingale and her Friends

Meet the Gascoignes’ famous cousin, the young Florence Nightingale and her feathered friends as she decides to become a nurse. With Florence’s help pupils will practice first aid and pack her suitcase for the Crimea.

Lotherton Topic days

Lotherton Hall is a grand country home that can be used to inspire your pupils’ creativity and learning. There are many different themes that will complement your topic back in school. Workshops can include object handling, an art activity, a trail and other resources.

Maths at the Monastery

The Industrial Revolution and the impact on factory workers

Armley Mills provides the stimulus for students to explore the theme of nineteenth century factory reform. Using various primary/secondary resources students are set the challenge of collecting evidence to support their arguments for or against factory reform.

ARTeam Techniques

How do artists develop a personal ‘visual’ language? Want your students to work with a real-life artist? Are you working on the Arts Award? Wondering which artist to work with? Ask us and we will point you in the right direction!

Portraits to life

WWII Evacuation Role Play

Commemorate the 75th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War, and take your class back in time to the Second World War. Billeted to their new grand home, pupils will discover life as child in the Second World War and ‘do their bit’ for the war effort. Pupils will prepare for war in a range of activities to bring their own narratives and connections to life.

Going to the Seaside (or, how Queen Victoria invented Holidays)

If Stones could Speak

Using a range of fun practical activities involving puppets, rubbings and dressing up, this workshop will help pupils to understand the different materials used in old buildings and how buildings change over time.

Take One Picture

What can be learnt through exploration of an artwork? Use one artwork to initiate cross curricula learning for a programme of study, an art week, a thrilling learning experience, or a whole school initiative.

Thinking Making

What can be learnt through exploration of an artwork? Look at sculpture, Experimental Drawing, Painting, Portraits, Landscape or Contemporary Art, and use this workshop to develop proficiency in specific art skills.

Ways of Being An Art Dectective

What skills do you need to explore art in an art gallery? This popular workshop introduces pupils to artworks in a gallery and presents looking, thinking and educated guessing alongside formal investigation as useful skills for evaluating and analysing.

Power and Politics

Primary Learning Pack for self-led visits to Armley Mills

Want to support your visit with curriculum linked activities? Download our Learning Pack full of self led visit information, resources and activity sheets for the museum with pre/post visit activities.

Animal Antics at the Museum

Take a walk on the wild side in our Life on Earth Gallery. Animals and skulls will be brought out especially for you! Create 3D giant collages showcasing your fun facts. Who dares peep into a polar bear’s mouth?

Leonora Cohen, the Leeds Suffragette

Meet Leonora Cohen, evaluate original archive sources and use enquiry based learning (Was this iron bar used to smash the Tower of London case?) to delve into life as a suffragette. Consider Leonora’s court case… guilty or innocent? You decide!

Who Killed the Queen’s husband?

In the early hours of the 10th February 1567, the body of Lord Darnley, husband of Mary, ‘Queen of Scots’ was found in the garden of the Old Provost’s lodge at Kirk o’ Field, Edinburgh. Have a go at solving one of the great historical ‘whodunits’ by trying to find out how one of Temple Newsam’s most notorious residents died.

Explorer Tours

Super-Sensory Art

How can you use senses to explore art in a gallery? Explore, make and share through sensory experience. The immersive content of this art skills workshop has been organised with SEN or Early Years pupils in mind but can be adapted to support music or dance skills development, or knowledge about the use of sensory engagement and the body in contemporary art practices.

Machines in Motion

A great interactive workshop looking at gears, levers and pulleys. Exploring the mill, students will discover examples of these simple machines on our machinery. They will discover how they work and in groups will create their own simple machine.

Professor Pickle and the Mysterious Materials

Keeping it Real - Behind the Scenes (Science in the Workplace)

You’ve seen “Night at the Museum” now come take a look behind the scenes at the Leeds Museums’ store. Find out about real science in the workplace! See how science is integral to museums from storage to object preservation and cleaning

‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ story sack

Share the story of ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ by Eric Carle. The story sack includes a copy of the book, caterpillar and butterfly soft puppets, laminated food and a hungry caterpillar dressing up outfit.

KS3 History teacher's pack

Hideous History - Monks and Tudors

Why did Tudor doctors shave chickens’ bottoms? What did monks do with the blood after letting? Why were beetles so important in making books? Find out the answers and do a talking timeline in this wexciting workshop!

Topics through Time: Comparing Queens

What was it like to live here 100 years ago?

What was life like for ordinary people in Yorkshire 100 years ago? What did people do for a living? What did they eat? Where did they shop? What was it like to be a child in Yorkshire? What happened when they were ill?

The Big Stink

The Wonders of Weaving

Research the textile process from raw fleece to the finished garment all under one roof. Pupils will be able to learn about the properties of wool and try carding, spinning and weaving and create a woven masterpiece to take home.

Trains, Telegrams and TVs

Beyond the Trenches

Was the First World War all about trenches? Who were the people behind the front line and at home? Use objects, documentary evidence and discussion to find out the local experience of war: from the Leeds Pals and Rifles to the stories of the people they left behind.

What is Fracking and how does it work?

Students will examine the practical aspects of the fracking process.
Using our rocks and minerals collections they will look at the specific geological conditions that exist in potential fracking sites, then study energy changes, pressure in fluids and particle models to investigate this controversial hot topic.

Fracking: is it just too risky?

Where on Earth?

How and why do we have fossils that appear to belong elsewhere on the planet? Students will use the unusual and intriguing fossil collections from Leeds and Stoke-on-Trent to study how the Earth began.

From Rock to Pot

What’s in a rock? How do we know? What can be use rocks for? Students will study how rocks were processed in the pottery industry through Mills of Leeds and Stoke-On-Trent. They will use our collections of rocks, minerals and Burmantofts pottery to look at the start and end of the process and experiment with the particle size and purity of matter.

How to make Coal Tar Soap

How do you make soap out of something black?
Students will look at Victorian washing, then find out about this unexpected use of fossil fuel material, and why environmentally it happened in coal mining areas and near electricity production of sites.

Why is Kirkstall Abbey important?

A fun assortment of activities will help pupils to discover; when and why the abbey was built? Who actually lived here? Why is it so big? And why is it still important today? Together we will explore the ruins with activities including dressing up, actions, puppets and games.

What was it like to be a Monk at Kirkstall? A local study

Pupils will explore what it was like to be a monk and live in medieval Kirkstall. We will start with a talking timeline covering over 850 years with pupils taking on the roles of important people in Kirkstall’s history.

Health and Hygiene

Health and Hygiene
Why were people in medieval times so preoccupied with death? Why did medieval monks live so long? What did they eat? How often did they wash? What happened when they were ill? Did they actually know what they were doing? Explore these questions and more using the abbey’s buildings, artefacts, herbs and documentary evidence.

Investigating Great Artists

A fun, active workshop bringing together History and Art and Design. Pupils will through a range of enjoyable activities, develop chronologically secure knowledge by asking perceptive questions and understanding methods of historical enquiry.

The First World War Hospital at Lotherton Hall

Commemorate the centenary of the First Wolrd War and discover the local history of Lotherton Hall as a VAD hospital. Pupils will train as VAD nurses in the different jobs needed to look after wounded British soldiers coming home from the front line.

From the Front Line to the Home Front

Lights On!

Spark your pupils’ own light bulb moment by discovering the story of Lotherton when electricity was first introduced in 1903. Pupils reveal the magic and history of light through character stories, objects and debate.

Lotherton over Time

Available from March 2015: Map the changes of a local historical site from pre-historic times, to the medieval village and the Gascoignes arrival at Lotherton in the 19th century. Pupils will use chronology and historical enquiry using objects and the landscape to bring the timeline of Lotherton to life.

Back to Nature

See the natural sciences in action! Explore Thwaite Island as a habitat for butterflies and micro-habitats local wildlife. Pupils will gather evidence by using observational skills and record their findings on record sheets by using tables, graphs and pictures